Palestine

Under the slogan “another world is possible,” an AFSC delegation of 20 young Palestinians shared their current struggles against the Israeli military occupation of the Palestinian territory with an international audience at the World Social Forum, Tunisia, this past March.

In an unprecedented show of concern about Palestinian children, 19 members of Congress signed a letter to Secretary of State Kerry urging the US administration to prioritize children’s human rights in its bilateral relationship with Israel. Initiated by Rep Betty McCollum (D,Minn), the letter was a companion action to a June 2 Capitol Hill briefing about Palestinian children in military detention.

Three young Palestinians, each carrying a different history, a different identity card from a different landscape--but from the same land--met for the first time thanks to the AFSC’s Palestine Youth Together for Change Project (PYTC). Each of them carries the burden of living under occupation, and each wants to be liberated in body and spirit.

Sophia Deibes is the newest member of AFSC’s Palestine Youth Together for Change (PYTC) project. The 20-year old from Zababdeh village in the West Bank is a media and journalism student at Bir Zeit University in Ramallah. Her convictions about the need to bring Palestinians together across geographic and political boundaries are challenging to many of her peers, but that doesn’t stop her from sharing her views.

On 11 September 2014, AFSC joined 43 other Palestinian, Israeli, and international organizations in urgently calling on world leaders to stop Israeli plans to forcibly transfer thousands of Palestinian Bedouins out of their communities in the central part of the occupied West Bank and into a designated township.

Al- Dula Home - A child stands amid the rubble of the destroyed Al Dalu family home, Gaza City December 3, 2012. Ten members of the Al Dalu family were killed, as well as two neighbors, by an Israeli air strike on their three-story home on November 18, 2012. Four of those killed were children, and four were women.

This Thursday, July 24, join AFSC and more than 50 other groups in protesting the ongoing attack on Gaza by writing to your government representatives and President Obama, organizing community actions, or otherwise making your voice heard.

Who we are

AFSC is a Quaker organization devoted to service, development, and peace programs throughout the world. Our work is based on the belief in the worth of every person, and faith in the power of love to overcome violence and injustice. Learn more

Where we work

AFSC has offices around the world. To see a complete list see the Where We Work page.